Everyone knows St. Patrick’s day is a lousy day for rock shows, right? Wrong wrong wrong. O’Leaver’s is putting on a big bash tonight. For $5 or two cans of food you can get in to see Matt Whipkey, the Spring Hill Mind Disaster, Le Beat, Life After Laserdisque and The Terminals. I’m told this one starts earlier than usual, around 7 p.m. I’ve heard there will be a beer tent outside the venue (Seems kind of cold for that sort of thing, but then again, any escape from the O’Leaver’s smoke hole would be a relief. I wish they had a beer tent set up all summer long so you could step outside with your beer when you wanted/needed to).

As for the rest of the weekend:

Saturday at Sokol Underground it’s Mr. 1986, Ladyfinger and Reverso Benigni. I haven’t seen 1986 since 2004. Here’s what I said about that show:

The Lincoln 5-piece does what Godspeed does with as many as nine or 10 people, albeit on a smaller scale. The idea’s the same — create sprawling, echoing, tonal sound pieces that are theatrical in size and style. These guys do it well. The first tip that we were in for something special was when the band didn’t face the crowd, but faced each other — the guitarist and keyboardist at stage right faced another guitarist and a bass player who stood toward center, focused intently on the drummer. They watched each other as we watched them create haunting, sonic joyrides. Like tonal chamber pieces, the 10- to at times 15-minute ambient overtures often rode on two or three chords that switched at the end of two-bar phrases of 4/4 — back and forth or back and up and back while the drummer played crisp syncopated rhythms. Guitars added even more rhythms, created effects or took off on their own highly technical though nuanced tangents.

Ladyfinger will likely be unveiling some new material from their recently recorded album which may or may not be on Saddle Creek Records. Opener is Lincoln experimental prog-rock instrumental trio Reverso Benigni. $7, 9 p.m.

Then Sunday night: Kite Pilot and The Protoculture at O’Leaver’s. This is a landmark show for those of us who have always wanted to see The Protoculture play live but never had a chance to when they were kicking around in the late ’90s. They expect that no one will show up. I think they’re wrong.